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As a man with a college budget I like to save where I can, and guitarfetish/GFS is bookmarked on chrome. I like the sound of their pickups, but I tried an Xaviere xv550 and it's taken a good amount of work to make it halfway decent. If you pay attention to them at all you'll have noticed they have taken 6 of their guitar models and refreshed the lineups in what they're calling their PRO series of guitars. Comparing the outgoing XV-line of strats to the new PRO870, they are almost identical. 3 piece alder body, rosewood/maple necks, their "vintage alnico stagger" pickups, a graphtech nut, USA spaced full trem block, and a 12" fingerboard radius. The upgrades to the new line are an extra fret (from 21 to 22) and the use of their Kwikplug system. But hey, for $199 retail that's cheaper than an affinity squire and you're getting a full sized alder body with USA specs.
I asked for this guitar as a Christmas gift from my grandma who lives back east, and due to the world right now it took a while to get here, but it finally came. I noticed no one had posted a forum post about or has really reviewed their "new" PRO series, so I figured worst comes to worse I have an alder body I can spec out. Luckily, that wont entirely be the case. Before I dive in let me just say this is my first strat in probably 5 years when I sold my affinity squire, all of my other guitars are gibson style, so this is a learning curve for me as I like to work on guitars. But I digress
I got the cream finish with a maple neck, and I think it looks pretty good! The wood grain on the maple neck is actually more than I was expecting, and I'm going to swap out the white pickguard for a tortoise on with only two knob holes (remembered why I don't prefer strats
and yeah, I'm gonna rewire for master tone/master volume). The tuners are nothing special and will have fender locking tuners when I swap the pickguard. The neck feels good, it's got a nice satin finish which is a nice transition from painted necks, and the fret ends are not sharp. However when I was trying to set the guitar up I started to run into issues. When I went to lower the pickups the screws actually started to rise out of the pickguard and I was unable to put the pickups flush with the pickguard. On the thicker strings the saddles are not able to move further back and so the intonation will never be right. And especially on the E string it's really sharp by the 12th fret. If anyone has advice on what to do it would be much appreciated, but at the same time I don't mind doing the work to throw a fender 2-point bridge in there either. Like the XV550, the frets are the demise of this guitar. No matter how much relief I put in the neck and no matter how high the action is, there is fret buzz all over the place. Luckily I know how to do fret jobs, and I feel completely comfortable leveling the frets on this guitar. Also, the fret marker on the 21st fret looks a little messy, but you gotta be up close to see it. Same with very very small finish cracks by the neck. Also I do not know if this is what a normal neck joint on fenders should look like, but I'm going to post this here anyway. What was a surprise to me though was how good the pickups sound. From what I've heard via youtube, these sound better than even the CV pickups and I'm still learning how to EQ single coils. I love the quack of position 2 and the middle pickup sounds amazing, and while the neck is no texas special it does pretty much everything you want it to do. Also the bone nut does have graphite in the slots. For $231 out the door, I think this is a great project guitar.
That's where I stand with Guitarfetish/Xaviere guitars here in 2020. I don't think they're good beginner guitars due to fretwork/intonation issues, but I think they're great for people who are into modding because you know what wood you're getting and they use USA specs for their routing, at least for their PRO line. They are cheap import guitars and you're kidding yourself if you think otherwise. But compared to squire, there are many more finishes and the pickups sound better, and with some love I think it can be a great guitar.
I asked for this guitar as a Christmas gift from my grandma who lives back east, and due to the world right now it took a while to get here, but it finally came. I noticed no one had posted a forum post about or has really reviewed their "new" PRO series, so I figured worst comes to worse I have an alder body I can spec out. Luckily, that wont entirely be the case. Before I dive in let me just say this is my first strat in probably 5 years when I sold my affinity squire, all of my other guitars are gibson style, so this is a learning curve for me as I like to work on guitars. But I digress
I got the cream finish with a maple neck, and I think it looks pretty good! The wood grain on the maple neck is actually more than I was expecting, and I'm going to swap out the white pickguard for a tortoise on with only two knob holes (remembered why I don't prefer strats
and yeah, I'm gonna rewire for master tone/master volume). The tuners are nothing special and will have fender locking tuners when I swap the pickguard. The neck feels good, it's got a nice satin finish which is a nice transition from painted necks, and the fret ends are not sharp. However when I was trying to set the guitar up I started to run into issues. When I went to lower the pickups the screws actually started to rise out of the pickguard and I was unable to put the pickups flush with the pickguard. On the thicker strings the saddles are not able to move further back and so the intonation will never be right. And especially on the E string it's really sharp by the 12th fret. If anyone has advice on what to do it would be much appreciated, but at the same time I don't mind doing the work to throw a fender 2-point bridge in there either. Like the XV550, the frets are the demise of this guitar. No matter how much relief I put in the neck and no matter how high the action is, there is fret buzz all over the place. Luckily I know how to do fret jobs, and I feel completely comfortable leveling the frets on this guitar. Also, the fret marker on the 21st fret looks a little messy, but you gotta be up close to see it. Same with very very small finish cracks by the neck. Also I do not know if this is what a normal neck joint on fenders should look like, but I'm going to post this here anyway. What was a surprise to me though was how good the pickups sound. From what I've heard via youtube, these sound better than even the CV pickups and I'm still learning how to EQ single coils. I love the quack of position 2 and the middle pickup sounds amazing, and while the neck is no texas special it does pretty much everything you want it to do. Also the bone nut does have graphite in the slots. For $231 out the door, I think this is a great project guitar.That's where I stand with Guitarfetish/Xaviere guitars here in 2020. I don't think they're good beginner guitars due to fretwork/intonation issues, but I think they're great for people who are into modding because you know what wood you're getting and they use USA specs for their routing, at least for their PRO line. They are cheap import guitars and you're kidding yourself if you think otherwise. But compared to squire, there are many more finishes and the pickups sound better, and with some love I think it can be a great guitar.
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